Ford escort Diff brake and suspension upgrade

Firstly where abouts are you?
Secondly whats your budget?
 
If your diff is really thrashed i'd source another complete escort diff, there are plenty of decent ones around if you look. Discs are nice but i don't think overly necessary, as long as your drums are working well and serviced regularly they can work just fine for most cars.

But if you are set on discs in my opinion its much easier and cheaper to go the R31 route than get another diff which comes with discs. Because all other diffs with discs you are going to have to shorten it, and also change the stud pattern anyway. Both cost money, particularly the shortening - BIG money. But if your looking for a super strong diff this is sometimes the better option. 
For rally most use a hydraulic handbrake which isnt legal on road (unless you have both a standard cable handbrake for parking, and a separate hydraulic handbrake).
I myself have gone the R31 route in my project car. I have a spare Hilux diff there if i ever get fed up with it, but ill see how the standard diff goes first. 

Thanks guys I really appreciate it! I live in Adelaide.
Honestly budget wise. I'm not particularly worried but I don't want to be spending thousands if I can do the r31 route with the diff I have for 3-4 hundred.
I bought the car of a bloke for a very good price but when he said something needed 'looking at' It usually mean that it needed replacing 
I will take the diff apart and see the condition of it this weekend.
I was interested in doing the r31 conversion but I could not find much information on the setup of this. Especially since there was talk about milling the axle flange and such.

Hi Paul, we have had a quick chat a few weeks ago. The issue is the car will not only be driven on the street, the plan is to have the escort as a track day car but try and maintain some sort of roadworthiness. The issue is I don't want to spend time and money building up the original diff when I know the diff is going to have a hard life. If they are strong enough for rally situations then I'm happy to use the original diff but most people suggest that the original diffs are pretty poor.

Yeah ill probably end up going down that path. It's a standard pinto so hp limit won't be an issue

Thanks guys, I will be keeping the original diff in place. My biggest goal is to make sure it still stays road legal. When you put the rear brakes on, does the brake bias go wildly out of whack? and if so what method of adjustment do you use? I'm still in the market for suspension as well. Any threads or recommendations?